Details

Date

1699

Author

Hartsoeker

Contribution

Postulated transmission of intestinal worms by ingestion of eggs shed in feces.

Reference

Grove

Notes

Niklass Hartsoeker, in a letter of 1699 to Nicholas Andry (published by him in 1700): "I think that worms, males and females, develope in the intestines and that some of their eggs are excreted with the feces, and falling on vegetation or some other item they are eaten by another animal in whose intestines the worms, enclosed within the eggs, come and nourish themselves...". Translation? in Kean et. al. 1978. This was a major conceptual advance over the presumption of spontaneous generation in situ.